THE 2004 CAMPAIGN: THE SCENE; Rivals Dig In, Draw Blood, Cede Nothing

By JAMES BENNET

Published: October 6, 2004

Let it be noted that Vice President Dick Cheney never actually used the word ''whippersnapper'' on Tuesday night. And Senator John Edwards never said ''ogre.''

But they may as well have.

Gravel-voiced, practically growling, Mr. Cheney leaned heavily on his elbows on the desk before him as he recalled his long service in Congress and the White House.

''Your rhetoric, Senator, would be a lot more credible,'' he said at one point, ''if there was a record to back it up.''

But it was deep in Mr. Cheney's capacious record that Mr. Edwards reached for ammunition to fire back.

''He voted against funding for Meals on Wheels for seniors,'' Mr. Edwards said, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a look of boyish, pained bewilderment.

A freshman senator from North Carolina, Mr. Edwards was clearly used to Mr. Cheney's line of attack, that Mr. Edwards was inexperienced and inconsistent. But Mr. Cheney, a Washington mandarin and among the most influential vice presidents ever, found himself playing defense on what has been unchallenged home turf, his reputation for competence.

Again and again, Mr. Edwards tried to guide the debate from his slim credentials to Mr. Cheney's record, turning the vice president's core strength against him.

''Mr. Vice President,'' he said, ''I don't think the country can take four more years of this kind of experience.''

The candidates were both white American Christian male millionaires in dark suits -- and, of course, both politicians. Both come from what Mr. Cheney called, with more stoicism than sentiment, ''relatively modest circumstances.'' But Mr. Cheney, 63, and Mr. Edwards, 51, presented a contrast on virtually every point.

With Mr. Cheney in one corner and Mr. Edwards in the other, viewers could pick their own frame of reference and apply their preferred images to each set of points, corporate leader versus trial lawyer, executive versus legislator, astringency versus empathy, the arid sensibility and granite consonants of Big Sky country versus the honeyed humor and swampy vowels of the Carolinas.

It was a face-off between a candidate, Mr. Cheney, for whom substance is also a form of style and a candidate, Mr. Edwards, for whom style -- a sunniness that never sets -- is also a form of substance.

Mr. Cheney played to type, frowning through most of the debate, except when, with lips compressed, he occasionally made a slight mocking smile at Mr. Edwards's accusations. Mr. Edwards smiled far more often. But with a new relish, he also lunged into the traditional attack-dog role of a vice-presidential candidate.

Mr. Edwards declared that as chief executive of Halliburton Mr. Cheney ''did business with sworn enemies of the United States.''

In turn, Mr. Cheney called accusations about Halliburton a ''smokescreen.'' Noting that as vice president he served as president of the Senate, Mr. Cheney lectured Mr. Edwards on his attendance record, calling it ''one of the worst,'' and adding, in what seemed one of the evening's surprising revelations, ''The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight.''

Later, aides to Mr. Edwards and the Democratic candidate, John Kerry, said that the two men met in 2001, during the National Prayer Breakfast, and that Mr. Cheney had recognized him in his remarks that day.

When the moderator, Gwen Ifill, directly challenged Mr. Edwards's thin r?m?n public service, asking, ''What qualifies you to be a heartbeat away?'' the senator spoke of serving on the Senate Intelligence Committee and traveling to ''some of the places we've talked about tonight'' like Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Switching tacks, he tried to make a virtue of lesser experience. ''I don't claim to have the long political r?m?hat Vice President Cheney has,'' he said. ''That's just the truth. And the American people know that and deserve to know it.''

He added that the Bush administration had proved that ''a long r?m?oes not equal good judgment.''

Beneath a painting of an eagle, the two men sat elbow-to-elbow in gray swivel chairs in a small chilly auditorium at Case Western Reserve University, in fiercely contested Ohio, where more than half a million new voters had registered before the deadline on Monday. Toward the end of the debate, Mr. Cheney looked back on the last four years and said he was not exactly sure why bipartisanship in Washington had declined. Debates, of course, are about highlighting differences, not points of agreement. Yet there was one gentle moment between the blows when Mr. Edwards praised Mr. Cheney as a loving father who had embraced a gay daughter. Mr. Cheney thanked him for ''the kind words.''

He looked at Mr. Edwards and -- gruff and contained -- added, ''I appreciate that very much.''

Despite the harsh words, such gatherings of political professionals and political journalists can feature moments of genuine bipartisan bonhomie, at least away from the cameras. In a room outside the debate hall where reporters and politicians bellied up to a spread of turkey, cabbage and cannolis laid out by Anheuser-Busch, the top partisans -- Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee, and Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee -- shared a snack and a roar of laughter before the candidates squared off.

Fresh from a snappish joint encounter on cable television, Mr. Gillespie told Mr. McAuliffe that he would see him again at 7 o'clock, when the two were due for yet another face-off in cableland.

Mr. McAuliffe said he was not sure he would appear, because, he said, Joe Lockhart, Mr. Kerry's spokesman, was hogging all the airtime. Mr. Gillespie replied that Mr. Lockhart had been doing the same thing with the Anheuser-Busch cookies.

Both men laughed and later asked a reporter not to report the exchange because, they said, it was mean.

He noted that he gave Mr. Gillespie a can of beer after the presidential debate on Thursday in Florida.

Photo: Plenty of Kerry/Edwards supporters and Bush/Cheney supporters made themselves known and heard yesterday in Cleveland before the debate at Case Western Reserve University. (Photo by Tony Dejak/Associated Press)(pg. A26)